The Fall of the Apprentice
by GardenerKing
Summary: I do not know what will happen in "Twilight of the Apprentice", but this is what I think should happen.
The situation looked as bad for the crew of the _Ghost_ as it ever had. They had almost made it back to the ship when the Sith Lord had stepped out of the shadows. In seconds, most of them were down, including Kanan and Ezra, the latter perhaps dead. Ahsoka now fought alone against Darth Vader.

"Why are you doing this? You were my friend! My teacher! My master!" she cried as she struggled to parry his powerful blows.

"You chose to leave my service."

"I left the Jedi, not you! I would have done anything for you!"

"Then be my apprentice once more. Join me, Ahsoka. It is the only way you can save your friends."

"Very well. Just let my friends go."

"Ahsoka, no!" shouted Hera.

"Hera, it's the only way. Please, take the others and go. And evacuate the base as soon as you can. You'll have to move again."

Ahsoka stood and watched, tears streaming down her face, as the _Ghost_ flew away, Vader at her shoulder.

Vader took her lightsabers and brought her to his personal shuttle. The Fifth Brother and the Seventh Sister were waiting for them. "Place her in binders and take her to the crew compartment. Watch over her carefully. She is still dangerous." The two inquisitors obeyed while Vader himself entered the cockpit and took the controls. Soon, Ahsoka felt the impulse as the shuttle entered hyperspace.

When they finally arrived wherever they were going, the two inquisitors took her from the rear exit of the shuttle into what looked like a giant black castle. From the brief glimpse she got of the exterior, the castle appeared to overlook a desolate beach. She was brought to a holding cell, and then, some time later, to what looked like a training yard, or perhaps an arena. Other than the two inquisitors, she saw not another living soul, or even a droid.

Then Vader entered the training yard. The two inquisitors backed away; even they feared the Sith Lord. Ahsoka struggled to keep from trembling. "You feel great sadness, Ahsoka, and great anger. You fear for your friends, but even more for yourself. I know you fear that you are going to lose yourself in the dark side, but it is only by losing yourself that you will find yourself. Once you have given yourself to the dark side, you will become a greater, stronger version of yourself." He waved a hand, and her binders fell away. "You no longer need those," he said, and then he tossed down her lightsabers to her; she caught them easily. "The way of the Sith is that the only the strong survive and rule. To become my apprentice, first you must pass a test. The inquisitors, Ahsoka. Kill them now."

The two inquisitors were shocked, but quickly drew and ignited their lightsabers. Ahsoka activated her own, only to discover that their blades were now bright red; Vader must have replaced the crystals, she realized.

The fight was a hard one. She was outnumbered two to one, and the inquisitors were well-trained combatants. But she had been trained by perhaps the greatest lightsaber duelist ever to live, and, inevitably, she saw an opening, and disarmed the Fifth Brother, literally.

As the Fifth Brother gazed dumbfounded at his severed forearms lying on the ground, and the smoldering stumps that were left at his elbows, Ahsoka rounded on the Seventh Sister, who was now on the defensive. This time Ahsoka simply made her own opening: she parried the inquisitor's lightsaber with her main weapon, then cut the other woman's lightsaber hilt in half with her left-hand saber, taking part of several fingers and half of her palm with it.

The Seventh Sister clutched at the ruins of her right hand with her left and fell to her knees. Ahsoka raised her lightsabers to finish her, but then Vader said "No."

All three combatants looked at him, all them relieved. Despite her relief, though, Ahsoka felt even greater disappointment. Part of her, a big part, had wanted to finish the two of them once and for all. Then Vader spoke again: "Do not finish them quickly, apprentice. Punish them for all they had done. Make them suffer."

The two inquisitors' faces fell. Ahsoka, despite herself, found herself grinning in anticipation. The Seventh Sister, to her credit, was quick to react. Her own lightsaber had been destroyed, and her good hand was ruined, but she dove for the Fifth Brother's fallen saber, trying to grab it with her left hand. Just as her fingers were closing around it, though, it flew from her grasp. It hovered in the air for a moment, before flying to Ahsoka's waiting hand.

"You want this, don't you?" Ahsoka asked mockingly. She felt her anger, at the inquisitors, at Vader, at the whole situation, and above all at herself, bubbling up inside her. She tossed it into the air and then cut in two with her own lightsaber. "Don't worry. If it's lightsabers you want, I'll give you lightsabers."

Ahsoka was ashamed of what she did next, and even more ashamed that she also enjoyed it. The more ashamed she felt, however, the angrier she also felt, and the more that she could only feel relief by taking her shame and her anger out on the two inquisitors. 'They chose the dark side. They have no one but themselves to blame for this,' she told herself as she tortured them, giving them shallow cut after shallow cut with her lightsabers, now and then severing an ear or part of a foot. At first, the inquisitors begged, then screamed, then whimpered, and now gurgled. Finally, Vader gave her permission to end it. "Finish them," he said simply, and so she did, removing their heads with two quick slashes.

"You have done well, my apprentice. Now kneel before me." Ahsoka knelt, and Vader ignited his own lightsaber, just barely touching the blade to each of her shoulders in turn. "Henceforth, you will be known as Darth Vyka. Rise. As well you know, the way of the Sith is that there should only ever be two at once. You will be my apprentice in secret, until the day that I destroy my master, the Emperor, and take his Empire for myself. As you will one day take it from me, if you are strong enough. For now, though, you will train, as we work to defeat the Rebellion. Now tell me, where is the Rebel base?"

"Atallon, master, but surely they will be leaving it now, if they have not already."

"Perhaps, but then we shall track them from there."

–The End–


End file.
